The Waterville area was a part of the Kennebec Purchase of 1749, led by Boston merchant Sylvester Gardiner. In the 1760's John McKechnie was hired by Gardiner and the other merchants to survey the area and to lay out lots, which he did. Part of the McKechnie plan was the Mayflower Hill region, which was divided up into lots and then sold off. By the time the Waterville Literary and Theological Institution had opened its doors downtown in 1820, a small farming community had begun to develop up on this higher ground.
The first settlers to arrive on the hill-the McKechnie's, the Cliffords, and the Morrells-had to do a lot of clearing on their tree-covered plots before the land would support them. The Morrells, especially, took advantage of the land sale, and descendants of that family continued to live on the hill long after the other two families had migrated elsewhere.
In 1790, two Morrell brothers-Jediah and Josiah-bought most of the land from the McKechnie heirs. Jediah didn't stay long on the hill, but moved into Waterville to make his fortune there as a land tycoon. He then established the local Universalist-Unitarian church and changed the spelling of his last name to "Morrill." Josiah bought a sawmill in 1804 but lost it a few years later and then decided to make farming on Mayflower Hill his full time occupation.
As many of the children of the original McKechnie, Clifford, and Morrell families moved away throughout the nineteenth century, their parcels of land were sold and new families moved out to the hill. By the beginning of this century, the land had been divided up into relatively small farms. Almost all of them had an orchard and most of them were selling their excess milk and cream. One such farm was the Haines Orchard Farm. In 1912, Governor William T. Haines, Maine's governor from 1913 to 1915, began to buy tracts of land on Mayflower Hill, purchasing several acres of pasture land and woodland. In 1917 he bought a homestead from VA McDougal, which may have been where Josiah Morrell once lived. The Haines farm was a "gentleman's farm." Many Waterville residents remember picking apples in Haines' large orchard. The orchard is still there, though overgrown, on top of what is now Runnals Hill. The site of the Haines homestead was excavated in 1973-1975 by the Colby Archaeology Club. Their research of the Haines site, along with the chain of title search for the properties, and an oral history project were helpful sources of information for the 1982 Field Archaeology class.
Children who lived in the Haines homestead, along with other children in the Mayflower Hill neighborhood, used to climb to the top of the hill with their toboggans. Starting at the orchard, they could toboggan down the hill almost to where the Millett Alumni House stands today. A woman who grew up on the hill still remembers those long toboggan rides and remarked that "two slides an afternoon" was all that they had time for. After the snow had melted, Mayflower Hill was a popular picnicking area. One grove of pines in particular was enjoyed by residents of the hill, town, and college alike. "The Pines" or "Beefsteak Grove" was a small stand of pine trees on the top of the hill, surrounded by fields. Thirsty picnickers didn't have far to go for a drink of refreshing spring water, which could be found just over the hill. This spring was later developed into Johnson Pond.
Another homestead on the hill was the George Wheeler farm, bought by Emore Hustus in 1928. This farm was located where the Rice's Rips Road and Washington Avenue now meet, just west of the pond. Elmore's father ran a dairy business, and while growing up there, Elmore would help on the farm. By the time he came of age in 1927, the diary had grown to be, as Mr. Hustus said, "one of the largest milk businesses in Waterville." His father then turned the dairy business over to Elmore, and a year later Elmore moved into the Wheeler homestead. Due to the carelessness of a hired hand, however, the Hustus home burned to the ground in 1931. A little while later the barn also burned. It was the Hustus site that was excavated by Professor Longstaff's class in the spring of 1992 [editors note: these excavations are an ongoing project of the College].
Students in the archaeology course combined their talents and energy to put together some more pieces of the Mayflower Hill puzzle. The class, under the direction of Longstaff (who has done archaeological excavation in Israel since 1974), began to excavate the Hustus homestead. Two students undertook to research the property's chain of title. Another student conducted a magnetometer study of the site. Two students prepared an exhibit of artifacts and photographs from the site which remained for some time in the College's bookstore. Others cleaned, catalogued, and studied the rich collection of artifacts that were unearthed at the site. The results of these projects will be presented in separate papers in this collection of reports.
One of the things that the students learned from their study of old maps and interviews with local residents was that the system of roads was earlier very different from what it is now. Dean Marriner remarked that "the most important thing for anybody to keep in mind to get the picture-and it's very difficult to get it today without this-is to understand the layout of the old roads." There was no Mayflower Hill Drive as we know it today. Instead, Western Avenue extended across the hill and connected with what is now known as Rice's Rips Road. The avenue was just a dirt road then, but it was the principal route to Oakland (earlier called West Waterville).
This dirt road gave the farmers on the hill a difficult time. Farmers delivering milk had to make special arrangements to ensure that they would be able to get into town with their milk carts. The Hustus family, in order to make it through the thick dust and mud, would use a double team and a big wagon. They would drive to a lower section of Western Avenue where they stored a couple of milk carts. There they would change over and deliver milk in town, after which they would change back to the double team and return to their home over the hill.
Farmers weren't the only ones hindered by Mayflower Hill mud. Overly eager springtime enthusiasts who attempted to motor over Western Avenue in the early June mud season would end up stuck fast in half a foot of thick mire. This gave one of the Hustus's neighbors, the Stanleys, a chance to make a little extra money in the spring. For a small fee, Mr. Stanley would come along with his team and pull the car and its occupants to drier ground.
In the early 1930's, Waterville residents began to buy up the Mayflower Hill lands with the intent of moving the Colby College campus out to the hill. As the farming families of the hill relocated, many of their homes were left to deteriorate. Only one was saved, the Phillippe Poulin homestead, thought to be the former house of Jediah Morrell. The house was moved to a new location, renovated, and given a new name. It is now called the Hill house. When we began the excavation of the Hustus site, nothing remained of the buildings but a stone foundation. Many artifactual remains were just under the surface of the ground-a meat grinder, a potato masher, jewelry and silverware-and these, along with the other research, are providing a better understanding of life on Mayflower Hill before Colby.
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